


Going, Going, Gone

by CrackingLamb



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Drabble, Gen, Post-Canon, all the companions - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 09:04:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13478178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: At the end of things, is there anything more important than the ones we've loved, even if we've lost them?





	Going, Going, Gone

It was harder to breathe now. And it hurt so much it was hard to fight it. Years of living in a radioactive wasteland had finally caught up to her. She knew the mass in her lungs was there, had known long before Curie confirmed it. Now all she could do was wait.

One by one the companions of her youth had visited her, Preston with his hair so white it was like snow, his aged face tired but happy to see her one last time. Nick, never changing, never aging; he sat with her most days now, just keeping her company. Piper, her grandkids in tow. She could hear them running around Sanctuary Hills, their jubilant laughter floating in through windows that had never been re-paned in all her years of living there. She could hear her son leading them around, showing them all that she'd built. She heard her own grandchildren out there with Piper's.

Mac and Duncan had come by too,the father and son duo now acting as sheriffs of the Commonwealth. Even Cait had dropped in, her familiar scowl replaced with grief to lose the friend who had stood by her through thick and thin. X6-88 stood on guard at her door, his face lined with age but with the same stoic strength he'd always possessed. Codsworth hovered around Curie out in the kitchen; she could hear them. Strong had come and gone, stating bluntly that his leader was passing, and he would need to find a new one.

Deacon was already gone to that great beyond, but she could picture his gaze, sunglasses off and blue eyes bright with mischief. Danse had left the Commonwealth so long ago she barely remembered his face, and she wondered if he was still out there...somewhere. She wondered if news of the passing of the Minutemen General would make it to wherever he was.

Now only one remained. The only one she really wanted to see.

She heard X6 talking to someone at the door and heard the gravelly response and her heart lifted. When he came into her room, the same one they'd shared for many years before it all fell apart, when guilt and loss and pain had finally overcome all they'd shared, the same one where that love and passion had burned like the sun, she saw that he looked the same.

“You came,” she whispered.

“Did'ya think I wouldn't?” Hancock said, reclining automatically on the bed next to her, her shrunken hand in his. He examined it, as if it was easier to look at the wrinkles and liver spots and blue tracery of veins than it was her face. But when he lifted it and placed a gentle kiss on her knuckles, she knew it wasn't that.

“John...”

“Save it, Sunshine. Don't waste breath you ain't got on me. I don't need to hear ya say it.”

“But I need to say it...before I can't.”

He looked down at her, his black eyes twinkling in the sunlight. Tears? Perhaps. The red coat looked more worn, but sturdy enough after all the ballistic weave she'd put in it. The tricorn was the same as always, battered and misshapen, but cocked at a jaunty angle that still gave him his air of charismatic authority. She could even smell the Mentats on him. Some things would never change, and for that she was grateful.

“Go on, then,” he said softly.

“I love you,” she whispered, barely enough breath to push the words from her throat. “I'm sorry for ever pushing you away.”

“I know, Sunshine. I'm sorry too...for letttin' ya. I always figured I'd find a way to come back to you. Guess we just ran out of time.”

“I have never known a man like you, John,” she murmured. “I hope you know that.” She hoped, too, that he understood what she was saying with those few words. She'd never known another love like theirs, she'd never felt the burn for anyone else. Even Nate had been pushed into the recesses of her memory by him. He nodded; he knew.

“You want me to...help?”

“Please...”

“All right, love. One last ride for this freakshow.” He leaned down and pressed withered lips to a withered brow. She felt him move around next to her, heard glass clink in his hand

“Med-X?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course. Nothing but the best for my best girl.”

“Thank you, John.”

“I'll make it a good one,” he promised, and _there_ , there she heard the sorrow in his voice tempered with acceptance rather than mere resignation.

She smiled and closed her eyes. Now she could sleep, now she could fly, weightless and dreamless and painless. His hand in hers, his heat bathing her, his skin rasping against her own. Now she could be at peace without regrets. The needle slipped into her skin as though it were nothing more than paper and she hissed a little at the sting of the chem before it flooded her.  She barely felt the next one, or the next, already soaring high and far away from reality.

The pain floated away like a dream forgotten, as Hancock's murmuring voice in her ear began to sing an ancient lullaby until he grew too choked up to continue. The pain had abated, and the world was drifting on a cloud. She knew she could go.

And she did.

"Goodnight, Sunshine."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not crying...you're crying (I hope?).
> 
> Sorry....


End file.
